Storm names just gust badly

Saturday

Feb 9, 2013 at 6:00 AMFeb 9, 2013 at 6:51 AM

George Barnes Barnestorming

As I sit writing this, little flakes of Nemo are beginning to fall, and I am already in a panic mode.

I never used to panic about storms until I discovered Facebook in 2007. Now each storm, large or small, I embrace the horror with 500 friends, each trying to alternately amuse or terrorize the rest of their friends.

This one is supposed to be bad, and I am having a hard time with it. The difficulty is not the idea that the storm is bad. It is that the Massachusetts Interscholastic Weather Naming Association or whatever organization chooses these winter storm names, chose Nemo. Who in their right mind would name a killer winter storm from the other side of the River Styx after a cute fish or a deranged submarine captain?

Choosing the name Nemo is like calling a storm Winter Storm Tim Murray — too nice.

The Weather Channel came up with the list of names for this winter because the National Weather Service doesn’t do it. Traditionally the names were left up to newspapers, which, populated with creative people, came up with “The Blizzard of ’78,” “The Blizzard of ’88,” “The Blizzard of ’56,” etc.

The Weather Channel, which apparently wants to keep its viewers awake long enough to watch its weather reports, decided to improve on the effort.

The list of names it selected, at first glance, appears to be a bunch of serious names including dead Romans, ancient gods and poets. Unfortunately, we are a pop culture society and I immediately connected the names to movies and cartoons.

My favorite so far was Khan. The name strikes terror in the hearts of all Star Trek fans and a few history scholars.

Nemo is an ancient Greek term, but I am sure it was selected because fish are so appropriate for winter storms.

Come on, Weather Channel! The list still includes Yogi; Q, which will strike irritation into the hearts of Star Trek fans; and Rocky, which as far as I can tell is either the name of a squirrel or the name of a mannequin on Rockwell Pond in Leominster dressed in swim clothes and sitting on a lifeguard chair waiting for the ice to melt.

Leominster Mayor Dean Mazzarella, never one to miss a chance for publicity, declared Thursday Rocky Day to draw attention to an effort to raise money for the Leominster Veterans Center.

I would like to see seriously mean-sounding storm names in the list. This is New England. We used to name our people Ebenezer and Captain Ahab. Let’s put some teeth into our storm names, too.

I like the Storm-A-(something) names, like the famous Storm-A-Geddon. I can see Storm-A-Palooza too, but the Weather Channel would probably pick Storm-A-Barista or some other cute name.

I think it is important in the ramp-up to any storm to strike terror in the hearts of average citizens. Winter Storm Zombies-In-Your-Yard would be nice as well. It has to be something that will keep people awake at night.

Naming storms after murderous dictators or serial killers might be a little bit over the top, but it should be something tough-sounding and a little bit frightening. Nemo just does not have the chops for a winter storm of this magnitude. (Note to readers: OMG! OMG! Nemo snow is already coating my windshield!)

My suggestions for future winter storms would be to scrap the rest of this winter’s list — other than Zeus — and select names that have a little more beef behind them, such as Storm Schwarzenegger, Winter Storm Rambo or Storm-Apocalypse. This is New England, where the weather is rough and the people are tough.